


Secrets, lies and brotherhood.

by flashwitch



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Brotherhood, Brothers, Drug Abuse, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Inprisonment, but ben is dead, does that count?, forced family, i didn't tag character death, why does no one ever believe Klaus?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2019-11-13 02:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18022781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashwitch/pseuds/flashwitch
Summary: Why does no one believe Klaus?





	1. Chapter 1

Everybody knows that Klaus can’t use his abilities when he’s high. When he’s been drinking. When he’s not sober.

It’s something they learned when he was thirteen and he stole some of Vanya’s pills and took more than the recommended dose. They heard him laughing for the first time in months. They saw him sleep peacefully. They watched him wake with a hangover and a smile.

To be clear, the pills themselves did not make him laugh. But the silence in his head when he took them did.

Dad was not impressed. But he decided it was a good avenue for experimentation. What drugs would inhibit his powers, could he fight past the inhibition, would any drugs heighten his abilities?

The answer was pretty much anything mind altering stopped him from contacting the dead.

So when he says he sees Ben, three days After, when he’s drunk and he’s taken something and he’s slurring his words, Luthor punches him.

Diego gets between them, protects like he always does. Allison is screaming at them to stop, Vanya is crying. Ben is sitting with his head in his hands, his hood drawn down over his face.

“I told you,” Klaus slurred, his lip thick and the taste of blood in his mouth (Luthor pulled the punch at the last second and Klaus knows it). “They never believe me.”

 

* * *

 

It becomes common to see Klaus talking to his brother. Their brother. To Ben. After a few days of hurt feelings and anger, they decide Klaus is broken. They decide he’s cracked. That the pressure of everything, the drugs, the shock of Ben’s death, one or the other or all of the above, has proved too much for him. And he’s almost sure they’re right. He _can’t_ see dead people when he’s high (and he’s 17 now and high or drunk whenever he can get away with it). So Ben can’t be real. Ben died. Ben was gone. 

But real or not, Ben was right there. He was visible and he was listening and talking and _present._ Luthor and Alison were a unit. Diego was caught in between, spending half his time biting at Luthor’s heels, the other half leading Ben and Klaus into trouble. Five had been closest to Vanya, and now that he was gone, she was an outpost to herself. Without Ben, Klaus looked to Diego and found him fighting desperately to lead, to be the hero. And Klaus did not want that. Ben knew. Ben understood. They didn’t sign up for this. They didn’t ask for this. They were _children._

And Ben was dead. 


	2. Chapter 2

Klaus is 18 and he’s in jail.

Drunk and disorderly. It’s his second time, so they’ve given him one month. He is sure Allison is pissed, she’s just got her first big role and she’s always going on about her loser brothers making bad publicity. He calls Diego, because Diego is the one he can always count on, but Diego hangs up on him. Klaus had forgotten that Diego had gotten serious about the whole cop thing. Having a brother in jail was not good for his image either. (Diego filled Klaus’s commissary account the next day, probably feeling guilty).

Klaus was sober and trapped and it was hell. Do you know how many people die in prison? He’s dealing with the withdrawal and the noise and the… everything. It’s too much. But Ben. Ben was there, right there. He sat on the edge of his bed and talked to him. Told him old stories, the stories Mom had told them growing up. The stories of Dad’s travels, heard from Pogo. He went sometimes to check on the other siblings and brought the news back to Klaus.

And for the first time since Luthor punched him, Klaus let himself believe Ben was real.

 

* * *

 

He gets out, he carries on, he’s stoned out of his mind half the time, and it’s fine. Allison goes to Hollywood, Luthor goes to space, Vanya gets published, Diego drops out of police academy, and through it all Ben is there. It’s just one more thing that makes Klaus Klaus. He’s gay, he’s an addict, he sees dead people, and he thinks he’s talking to their dead brother. He surfs on one couch or another (he’s the only sibling who had visited Vanya’s apartment before Five came back), he mostly takes care of himself, keeps to himself. And when he’s with them, they all ignore him talking to Ben, well for the most part. Luthor (when he gets on the space phone) tells him to knock it off. Allison rolls her eyes and asks him to please stop that, just while they’re in public. Vanya looks at him like she’s trapped (he never visits her for long). Diego… Diego puts up with it. He doesn’t say he believes Klaus, but sometimes he asks him to say hi to Ben. Ben sometimes visits Mom and Dad and Pogo, but Klaus can't face that damn house. 

 

* * *

 

And through it all, there’s Ben. Ben goes with him to the halfway house. To his court ordered sobriety meetings. They read Vanya’s book together, they watch films, they eat eggs and waffles, and it’s _real._ **Ben is real.**

And they don’t see it. They don’t see him and they don’t see Klaus. Not really. They see the show he puts on. They see the lights and the dancing and they miss all the rest.

He doesn’t blame them for not believing him. He has carefully crafted the face he shows to stop them thinking of the scared little boy who screamed every night, surrounded by ghosts. The earnest little boy who did whatever his father wanted and got nothing in return. The  broken boy who takes everything he can to numb his mind.

 

* * *

 

They talk about it, Klaus and Ben. Not often, but sometimes in the quiet, in the night. They speak softly to each other.

“Do you think it’s me? That I wanted to see you, to keep you, so I dreamed you up? Or do you think it’s you? That there’s something about the way you were that makes it easier for me to see you?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I care. I’m here. That’s all that matters.”

“Yeah.”


	3. Chapter 3

(The first time Ben is GONE, after hanging on through drink, through drugs, through prison, through death itself, is when Klaus is on the front lines. Ben isn’t dead yet. Ben hasn’t been born yet. Ben doesn’t exist.

And Klaus loves Dave, and that should be enough, and it is enough in all the ways that should matter, but people are dying. People are dead. People are destroyed in horrific and terrible ways and he sees them all. He hears them all at night. And there’s not much there to numb it. Dave helps, he helps so much, he’s _perfect_ and human and Klaus _loves him_ (and this is what love is, non-fraternal love, this is love given and received, love without reservation, love without restraint, this is _Dave_ ).

But Ben is gone. And for the first time in a long time, he doubts himself. Ben is gone (or was Ben ever really there?) and the voices are too loud and too sharp and there are ghosts everywhere.

And then Dave is gone.

And he can’t see him.

And Klaus is gone too, gone to his past, gone to the future, gone to sit on a bus.

And it takes a while for Ben to come back, for Ben to find him. And until he sees him again, he doesn’t feel real (he _isn’t_ real, he’s a ghost himself, it’s all gone, all of it, _Dave_ ). But then Ben is there. And Diego. And all the rest and Klaus puts himself back together piece by piece. The show must go on. He puts his face back on and stands up and brushes off the dust. He’s a Hargreeves and there are expectations.)

* * *

 

(When Klaus vanishes, Ben goes slightly mad. He goes to his brothers and sisters, one by one. He screams at them. He tells them Klaus is gone (they missed him getting kidnapped in the first place, he’s not sure why they’d realise he was gone now). And it’s not long. It’s the space of a night, a few hours. But since he died, Ben has always known where Klaus was. Always. It’s because he’s dead. Klaus is like a lighthouse in a world of black and grey. They flock to him like moths to a flame.

And the light is gone.

For a moment, Ben is sure Klaus is dead (really dead, forever dead) but he quickly convinces himself he’s wrong. He has to be wrong.

So he goes looking. He looks at home, he looks at the motel, he follows Diego, but there’s nothing. There is an absence.

Then light flares up and he flies to it. And it’s Klaus, glowing like a hurricane lamp. And he’s so happy. _So happy_. His brother, his best friend, his only constant, his only contact with the world.

It takes him seconds to see something is wrong. Very wrong.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

(And then they realise they can touch each other. That Ben can affect reality. It’s proof, but more than that, it’s a tangible connection. It’s electricity, it’s reality, it’s his brother. And nothing’s going to stop them, nothing’s going to tear them apart. They have each other’s backs.)


End file.
